In a weekend workshop David offers clinic style led classes that investigate specific aspects of the practice in varying levels of detail according to the tastes of the workshop host. These investigative classes help students come to new perspectives on how to practice more intelligently, safely and joyfully.

This 16-hour offering, led by Adam Rumack & Jared Seide, is a powerful and inspiring introduction to the practice of Council and offers an experiential opportunity to work with the basic elements, modalities and forms. Council Training 1 workshops are offered by Center for Council throughout the year in a variety of locations.

with Steven Harper, joined by MO director Adam Rumack at the Esalen Institute. This workshop will present simple yet profound practices designed to access our capacity to innovate and participate with the essential movement processes of life. Through physical practices, work in pairs, group discussions, and direct experience of nature, we draw on ancient movement traditions of tai chi, aikido, and contemporary somatic practices that offer ways of centering, grounding, and knowing our belonging to the greater community of being.

Join one of the foremost western teachers of The Yoga Sutra, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali is the classical ancient Indian treatise on the practice of Yoga. This seminar series will consist of a close reading of Patanjali's original text, focusing on the opening section of the work, wherein Yoga is defined and the state of samadhi, liberation, described, as well as on the eight limbs of yoga covered in the heart of the text, which outline the step by step methods for attaining this enlightened state. Attention will be paid to the pre-modern commentaries of the text, thus exposing students to the traditional understanding of the practice of classical Yoga and its goals.

James Fox, founder and director of the Prison Yoga Project, will by joined by Formerly incarcerated San Quentin students in leading this half-day introduction. Topics will include Karma Yoga; Mindfulness and its role as an inherent aspect of traditional yoga; Trauma Informed Yoga (TIY), Yoga’s contribution to Restorative Justice principles and practices; Asana, pranayama and meditation practices proven effective for psychological and emotional well-being.

This workshop will explore the fine art of hands-on adjusting and specific techniques for working safely and intelligently with students practicing yoga poses in a class or one-on-one setting. Technical inquiry will include working with and adjusting different body types, principles of anatomy, reviewing details of alignment and energy movement in the asanas.

Council is a communication and mindfulness form being used in schools, organizations, prisons, and relationships to build bridges of understand, compassion, and awareness. It can be a way of bringing yoga practice more deeply into our daily lives and interactions. Space is limited in this popular training being offered for the first time publicly in the Bay Area.

For a thousand years prior to the 20th century, the central practice of Hatha Yoga was pranayama, yoga breathing. Asana, which since the early decades of the 1900s has more and more become the practice's focus, was considered an important preparation for breathing, but nothing more. This 5-week, 10-hour series will introduce you to the basic breaths and techniques of modern pranayama, including proper sitting not only for breathing but meditation as well.

Learn the basics of Sanskrit in this very practical and entertaining workshop for curious yoga practitioners and teachers in training. With ashtanga practitioner and mysore oakland community member Mary Beth Ray.

This is a monthly meeting of leaders and change makers involved in all types of organizations and communities. We gather around our shared interest and passion for refinding the infrastructures of connection to self, others, and the whole of life and spirit in unlikely places.

Join Jared Seide, director of Center for Council, for an exploration of Council as a "skillful means" for deepening community, easing suffering and fostering collective wisdom. This evening talk will explore how the practice of Council, which includes listening and speaking from the heart, is being integrated throughout the social justice continuum and how it may be extended into our lives and work.